I feel sorry for men. There! Yes, I said it; I have a legit sympathy for you dudes.
Women always talk about their low-self esteems due to the ferociously competitive and judgmental playing field set-up by their peers and media. "Must be pretty - must be skinny - must be a sex goddess - must be pretty - must be skinny - must be a sex goddess." It's an exhausting game I, personally, do not choose to play, but there's no denying those assumptions and judgments ARE THERE, and they can bring an unmanageable amount of stress, anxiety, and depression among us. But, we're not alone in this cruel world...
I have recently become aware of a different set of prejudices that the female community does not experience nearly as heavily as the male community, and that would be "the 'appeared' success" game. I'll explain the "appeared" part later. As I've grown up, I'll admit I've ashamedly played a role as an assessor in this game primarily due to social convention. It wasn't until the last few years that I was made truly aware of the unfair judgments and subjective assessments I, as well as many others, were making upon individuals in the male community. Since working on my spiritual self and attempting to achieve honest personal happiness, I can not deny the apologies I owe to those who have received my silent prejudices.
As men age and mature, they are heavily pressured about and assessed upon their nature of work and success level. Period. And, it's not just women who are judging men; it's men judging other men that's probably the worst! I think women initially started their judgment due to fear and practicality: "We need money to survive. How would we support ourselves? I'll have to depend on his salary because I'll never make as much he will." That's how it started, at least. Then, those judgments made the swing from necessity to materialism. Men, on the other hand, are judgmental in this area due to power and pride. Men feel manly knowing they're the breadwinner of the family, or that they have their own office to reference, or that they're "businessy" and powerful. They feel they've earned the right to look down on non-business world men. The older I get, the more I see it, and the more it sickens me. I'm so tired of the rat race. I'm so tired of the false assumptions. I'm so tired of unrealistic "standards." I'm so tired of the unfair character judgments made simply due to a man's work apparel.
I stress man-to-man judgment because women do not feel the extent of this kind of pressure like men do. We just need to be cute and stay in our little place-holder jobs, like teaching, secretarial work, bookkeeping, reception, etc. Hell, it's easy to play the women's rat race if you wish. Just slop on pounds of make-up and wear trendy clothes. In regard to the men, it's not easy to go out and find a $100K/year job on a whim. It's basically like telling a man: "You will never get married or be able to afford children, be judged as a credible man, and will always be looked upon as lazy...unless you find a job where you wear dress pants (so at least that way you can start lying about your salary)."
I've summed up the business world rat race as so:
- I can guarantee you that simply because you are forced to wear dress pants at work, it DOES NOT mean you are automatically a) successful, b) powerful, c)smart/educated, or most importantly d) rich.
- Tradesmen make a great, financially stable living. Period. We will need plumbers, auto mechanics, electricians, etc. 'til the end of time. They make way more money than many of us dress pant wearing workers. WTF?!
- Wait, you mean to tell me that my college degree and dress pants don't automatically put me in high earner's tax bracket? Again...WTF?!
- Double wait...I can not drive an old car because I wear dress pants to work??? Oh shit, someone might notice I make less than a waiter/ress! How will I pay for this thing? Oh, don't worry about that; you wear dress pants to work. Just fake it.
- "You shouldn't marry a non-business world worker...you wear dress pants to work, duh! You're above that....even though he works harder and longer than you do and makes just as much or more money than I do. But, who cares about that...where are his dress pants?!" I can personally attest to working loads harder as an $8/hr plant nursery worker than I ever have in a job post college.
- "So, you're the breadwinner of the family, right? Because you wear dress pants at your job, right?" Ha! Ugh, no.
- "Poor thing...her husband's a dead beat. He has one of those jobs where he works on the weekends and doesn't wear dress pants. It's a shame..."
Yuck, yuck, yuck! How terrible are we as a society to be making these unjustified low-blows and assumptions about people?! Why is it perfectly ok for a woman to be a teacher, but when a man is a teacher making a teacher's salary we snub our noses at them? How is it that an HVAC technician making $45K/year is not considered as satisfactory as, say, an assistant attorney making $45K/year?
And, outside the facts of who actually makes more money despite their work attire and environment, the real point is we should have no concern with someone else's financial business or pass blind judgments on such shallow circumstances. It's the ugliest thing we can do as loving human beings. I'm trying hard to catch myself doing this and putting a stop to it.
Fu@% the dress pants. I'm wearing Chacos to work today just to put a kink in the system ;-)
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